Coco Gauff and a history of Black women’s tennis

By Steve Halpern

 

Yesterday I watched Coco Gauff defeat Aryna Sabalenka to become the 2023 Champion of the United States Tennis Open. Sabalenka proved to be a persistent opponent, and Gauff needed three sets to win her title. Thinking about that, when we look at the background to some of the Black women who became tennis champions, we are looking at a history of families overcoming tremendous obstacles. 

We can start this story by looking at Coco Gauff’s grandmother Yvonne Lee Odom when she was fifteen-years-old in 1961. Back in the year 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that segregated educational facilities were illegal. However, the states where Jim Crow segregation was the law refused to desegregate their schools. 

Then in 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first Black student at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. Bridges was escorted to school by federal agents. 

Then, in 1961, Coco Gauff’s grandmother, 15-year-old Yvonne Lee Odom, became the first Black student at Seacreast High School located in Delray Beach, Florida. Odom had been the captain of the all-Black Carver High School basketball team. 

Odom and her family understood the importance for her education as well as for all Black people to attend the better funded schools that white students when to. However, when Yvonne Lee Odom attended Seacreast High for three years, she wasn’t allowed to compete in sports. 

One of Odom’s children is Coco Gauff’s mother Candi Odom Gauff. Candi Gauff was a star track athlete in high school and at Florida State University. 

Candi Gauff was of the same generation as Arthur Ash who wasn’t allowed to play tennis at many of the segregated courts in Virginia. In spite of these obstacles, Ash became in international tennis star and the stadium at the U.S. Open is named for him. 

 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis eliminates Black Studies course. 

Today Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is running for the President of the United States. DeSantis has also worked to eliminate a Black studies course from the Florida Schools curriculum. He also argued that Black people developed “useful skills” during slavery. DeSantis neglected to mention if he would like to become a chattel slave so that he could develop some useful skills. 

However, today Coco Gauff is the Champion of the United States Open Tennis Tournament. Gauff and her family live in Florida. This family has been battling discrimination throughout their history. Today the Governor of the state argues that a course that might discuss that history will not be allowed to be taught in the Florida schools system. So, today when we see Coco Gauff holding the winning trophy of the U.S. Open, we are seeing that moment blowing up right in Governor Ron DeSantis’ face. 

Venus and Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka 

When we look at the family histories of other Black women who became tennis superstars, we see more stories about overcoming tremendous obstacles. The grandmother of Venus and Serena Williams was Julia Metcalf Williams. She lived in a shack in Shreveport, Louisiana and made a living picking cotton and taking in laundry. Living in the atmosphere of Jim Crow segregation meant that she needed to go to a segregated hospital to deliver the Williams sisters’ father Richard Williams. Three of Richard Williams’s friends were lynched by racist mobs. 

Naomi Osaka’s father Leonard François was born in Haiti. Haiti is the only nation in the world that had a successful revolution of slaves. The most powerful nations in the world retaliated to Haiti because of their heroic revolution. Because Haiti was transformed from the most affluent place in the world, to one of the poorest nations in the world, Leonard François left his homeland for an education in the United States and then in Japan. 

It was in Japan that he met Naomi’s mother Tamika Osaka. Naomi’s parents decided that she would take the mother’s name so she wouldn’t be teased in the Japanese schools. 

We might also consider that Naomi Osaka lived with her parents for a time in Osaka, Japan. During the Second World War, the United States Air Force fire-bombed 67 Japanese cities in a six-month campaign before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. About 37% of the city of Osaka was destroyed in that campaign. You can see more information about the histories of the families of the Williams sisters and Naomi Osaka at this link. 

So, when we look at these family histories, we see stories that are just as compelling as the tennis matches that made these Black women international tennis champions. Seeing how those obstacles have been overcome gives us a vision of how it is indeed possible to overcome the institutionalized racist discrimination that has been a part of the history of this country since its founding.